I purchased a 2000 Beetle for my daughter online. Car was supposed to running & drivable (what a joke). I've flushed the the cooling system twice but white milkshake keeps coming back. None of the traiditional signs of a blown headgasket (no white smoke or water coming from the tail pipe, no coolant in oil). I've read here that the oil cooler could be the problem...if anyone has any other ideas before I pull the head please respond...Thanks, Jim in GA

id pull the head for sure....not much to the oil cooler. good luch with everyting let us know what you find

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Understeer is when you hit the wall with the front of the car and oversteer is when you hit the wall with the rear of the car. Horsepower is how fast you hit the wall and torque is how far you take the wall with you.

I have the same problem with my wife's 2000 Beetle (AEG engine). I haven't pulled the head yet but I can tell you what I have found out so far through my research. The cylinder head is very hard to find on the parts market and is VERY expensive. Finding someone that can repair it is even harder. I think that particular year had problems with the plastic impeller in the water pump. The impeller will disintigrate, thus leading to coolant problems like this. I've had mine to a garage before it finally came to the state it's in (sitting in my driveway waiting for me to work on it this winter). The mechanic said the water pump needed replaced but said nothing more than that. Symptom-wise, we would periodically get a red warning light for overheating. I would add coolant and it ran fine for several weeks. I mistakenly staved off the problem by topping off the coolant level once a week. And yes, the oil was milky. Eventually, the engine got very noisy with some smoke out the tail pipe. I'm sure I now have a bigger problem. I'll update you on what I find out & what I did with it.

I went overboard telling you my problem but I didn't suggest anything to help you - sorry about that. Here's what I am planning to do. You may try the same things as well:

Loss of the coolant can lead to gasket failure, cylinder head or block cracking or warping. Most likely since you have oil in your coolant (or vice versa) you probably have either a gasket failure or a cracked or warped cylinder head. You can do a compression test on each cylinder to narrow down which cylinder may be involved; a more definitive test is to do a leak down test. This involves pressurizing the engine, and then going around it to determine where the pressure is escaping at. This is a good check. Since I have found out that cylinder head prices are through the roof I will try the block-seal approach first. Autozone and others have block-seal additives that have been very successful. I hope it is with mine. I figure it is a less expensive way to try to fix the problem. However, I will always have a funny feeling that it won't last for long. If this doesn't fix it, I will pull the cylinder head and see what's going on. In my case, since I ma hearing noise, I think I have a bad engine that I may have to rebuild. I'm a motorhead so that won't be a problem but I have come to the conclusion that at least this year VW is one of the worst cars ever built. Simply for no other reason than VW designing it so it is extremely difficult to work on. I'm an electrical engineer and if I designed systems like they have with this car I'd be looking for a job. VW designed the computer and support system in this car so that EVERYTHING is controlled by the CPU. You invariably have to take the car back to VW if it involves the CPU program, key fob or radio, etc. Royal pain in the neck when you live 118 miles from the nearest dealer. One might ask why I bought it. The car hadn't been on the market long enough for these types of gotchas to get advertised well. Now for the real reason - my wife wanted it in the worst way. I thought (there I go again) since I love working on old VW's that I would jump right in on this. Wrong.

i doubt the head os warped as you would have had to get that thing pretty damn hot. i picked up a used head on here for 75 bucks. it was full of sludge but a screw driver and a bead blaster took care of that. check the TEX for a head that you can use if you think yours in warped or take it to a maching shop and have them tell you if it is flat or not. i think all you will really need is some of your time and a 70 dollar head gastet.

sam on the other hand may be in the market for a new motor since a motor is cheaper then a rebuild and you put a bandaid on the issue for so long

I purchased a 2000 Beetle for my daughter online. Car was supposed to running & drivable (what a joke). I've flushed the the cooling system twice but white milkshake keeps coming back. None of the traiditional signs of a blown headgasket (no white smoke or water coming from the tail pipe, no coolant in oil). I've read here that the oil cooler could be the problem...if anyone has any other ideas before I pull the head please respond...Thanks, Jim in GA

If the head you need is an AEG I still have my original one if you are interested, it has 240,000 original miles on it; however I never had a problem with it and it has been wrapped in the same plastic wrap that the replacement one came in. I kept/keeping it for a spare in case I installed the new one improperly or I need a replacement for the '99 I have.

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